New Research Guidelines Pave the Way for Future Nanotech Surgery Gloves

A glove that can detect and identify tissue and immediately ablate it without needing another tool in the process? That’s exactly what the research engineers at the University of Illinois, Northwestern University and the Chinese-based Delian University of Technology are working on developing. The idea is to use nanotechnology to create flexible silicon-based electronics and soft sensors to create a useful electronic glove in the future.

Right now they are just working on the basic concepts and the creation of guidelines on how such a special medical glove might work. At the moment, the research isn’t working to create such gloves, instead figuring out a set of guidelines that will help with future development of electrotactile stimulation devices. The paper released by the researchers describes materials, fabrication strategies and device designs. In the future this could also lead to surgical robots that can interact using touch.

When will such a super glove come out? Hard to say, since this was simply a guideline on how to do such a thing. What other uses could such a glove theoretically do, besides finding and ablating tissues? Sensors for temperature, measuring motion, and even gloves with small heaters for use in surgery are all potential possibilities.

I wouldn’t expect anyone to create such gloves anytime soon, but I’m sure an age of nanotech surgery gloves isn’t all that far away either.